The present invention was originally disclosed in U.S. provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/723,975 filed on Oct. 6, 2005, and priority is claimed to the provisional application.
The present invention relates generally to the field of sanitizing devices and more specifically to an omni-present device for sanitizing stethoscopes.
Stethoscopes are used every day by nurses and doctors around the world to listen to sounds that are produced within the human body. A traditional stethoscope consists of a head portion for collecting sounds, one or two sound tubes that transport the sounds and two ear-pieces that fit inside the ears of the user. The head portion includes a large diaphragm opposed to a smaller bell. The diaphragm or the bell is pressed against the skin of a patient to collect high or low frequency sounds. The sound tubes connect the head portion to the ear-pieces. Since stethoscopes generally are not disposable, the same diaphragm will be pressed against the skin of many different patients. In order to prevent the transfer of any harmful germs between patients, stethoscope diaphragms should be sanitized after every use. Stethoscope cleaning, however, is often a forgotten practice among medical personnel. One study found that a majority of health care providers cleaned their stethoscopes every month at the most. Another study showed that most health care providers knew that cleaning their stethoscope was important, yet 38% of them had never cleaned their stethoscopes. By not cleaning the diaphragms, stethoscopes become a vector for the spread of nosocomial diseases (diseases acquired while in the hospital). This is especially troublesome because many patients in hospitals already have a weakened immune system. In a third study of 150 health care workers, staphylococcus (staph) species were cultured from 89% of the participants' stethoscopes. Nosocomial diseases kill an estimated 103,000 people in the United States a year, and the danger is worsening as many hospital infections can no longer be easily cured with common antibiotics. One of the deadliest germs is Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA), which may live harmlessly on the skin but causes havoc when it enters the body. Patients that do survive MRSA may spend weeks or months in the hospital and endure several operations to cut out infected tissue. In 1974, 2% of staph infections were from MRSA. By 1995, that number had risen to 22%. Today, experts estimate that more than 60% of staph infections are MRSA. Hospitals in Denmark and Finland once faced similar infection rates, but were able to bring them down to below 1% through rigorous enforcement of sanitation rules that included hand washing and the cleaning of rooms and equipment. Studies suggest that a 70% alcohol solution will kill 95% to 98% of bacteria on surfaces. It has been shown that a simple cleansing of a stethoscope diaphragm with an alcohol swab will reduce the bacteria count by 94% or more.
What is needed in the field is a sanitizing device that is easy to use and small enough to be attached to a stethoscope without adding unmanageable weight or bulk. Having the sanitizing device attached to the stethoscope would automatically remind the health care worker to sanitize the diaphragm after each use. The ideal device would include an alcohol solution and require very little effort to use in sanitizing the diaphragm of the stethoscope.